>>13304826>>13304864>>13304895What well thought out and rational responses from America's frontline healthcare workers! I wonder why these high-IQ and highly successful people are unable to deal critically with an argument they've never heard and have not been taught the proper response to??
I bet the answer lies in the educational system.
The educational system teaches you WHAT to think, not HOW to think.
They present material to us and then test us on the material to see how well we've learned it. Intelligent children will do well on these tests and be rewarded with high grades. As we continue to do well, these rewards will increase in importance; high grades lead to advanced classes, better colleges, more exclusive grad schools, more prestigious jobs, more money, more respect, etc. etc. For our entire lives, we are REWARDED for the uncritical assimilation of new information. We are not rewarded for questioning the parameters or underlying assumptions of what is being taught, and there is no opportunity for presenting an alternative data set or point of view; learn the material, take the test, move on.
This is exacerbated in fast-paced, high intensity programs like med school (or PA school, or many PhD programs, or other less grueling but similarly structured environments). When the sheer volume of information to learn is astounding, every passed test becomes a miracle, and the already-stunted ability to deal critically with the material and ask questions goes right out the door.
Hence, high IQ individuals who are wildly successful in the "rat race" and work in "the sciences" that are completely impotent when confronting original arguments and data sets they have no experience with. Instead of a scientific, critical, and doubtful orientation towards learning, theirs is one of unquestioning obedience to what they have been taught, and any who dare ask questions are "anti-science."
